At Right Media, clients truly come first. No matter where we are, there are times when we have to drop everything for you. We take risks so that you can reap the rewards of innovation. And while at times it does make for an intense journey, we hope that you agree that it’s all worth it =)

If you’re involved in your site’s ad sales or operations, you probably get lots of calls like these from networks:

“We’ve got great new advertisers, but you’re not giving us enough inventory. We’ll guarantee you $1.00 cpm for the next three months if you move us up the chain.”

“Our new targeting technology increases results across the board by as much as 1,000 percent. Give us more of your better inventory so we can show you how to generate more repeat business at higher prices.”

Everybody wants your inventory. Let’s celebrate!

Or not. Put on your premium sales hat and now it’s you telling a different story:

“Our site delivers your target audience and keeps them longer than any of our competitors. Our brand-building programs help you capitalize on their loyalty and that stickiness.”

“If we lock up this deal today, I’ll get you the 300×250 on the section front and bonus you an equal number ROS.”

Sometimes it seems like you can’t give it away.

So you keep doing what good publishers must to increase demand: produce better content; find and keep the right audience; package the inventory for easy sale; recruit and train great salespeople who buyers trust.

Then you dump your remnant inventory with those nagging networks and settle for a few additional dollars every month.

It’s ok to admit that you relate to this scenario. For the most part, this is how publishers prioritize and run their ad sales business.

At the iMedia Brand Summit in Henderson, NV, in September 2006, Dave Steinberger, VP of Operations for Tickle, Inc., hit a nerve when he told a room full of publishers how his management team purposefully took a completely new approach to remnant. They had to change their philosophy, their worldview, their perception of the true role of remnant inventory in their overall business plan.

For example, they realized that if they pursued a partnership with several other sites to create a strong ad package for brand advertisers, they would have many times more remnant inventory to deal with. It didn’t make sense to take what might be billions of impressions and hand it to a few networks. Doing so meant that those networks would determine the value of those assets. They would pay the new Tickle Grapevine Network based on their numbers, which wouldn’t distinguish one property’s value from another.

With no ability to see what the networks are doing and how they are valuing the inventory, Steinberger and his partners would never know if they were getting as much as they could for the assets.

Fortunately, Steinberger found Right Media and the Publisher Media Exchange, which made it possible for Tickle Grapevine to scale a large and lucrative network for their remnant inventory.

PMX enabled the publishers to earn market value for every impression, minimize overhead, and maintain full control over what runs on their pages. One person is largely responsible for managing more than 60 advertisers running 3 billion impressions monthly on 12 sites. (Read the full story here)

Ask yourself if you may be undervaluing your inventory. Maybe you’ve put a significant chunk of it in the hands of a few networks and you’re ok with getting a few checks. If you take a closer look, you may realize that you’ve left a lot of money on the table. Get your team together and ask some questions:

• Do we understand how our networks value the impressions we give them?

• Do we know where every ad comes from and how it is performing?

• Can we automate the way we manage our network relationships, consolidate their reports, and approve or ban ad creatives?

• Does our current ad technology ensure delivery of the highest-priced ad on every ad call?

• Do we have a good reason for every house ad we serve instead of a paying ad?

Give it some thought. You may discover that it’s a good time to change the way you think about your remnant inventory.

We launched RMX Direct into private beta a little over two months ago so it’s time for an update on what’s occurred and what’s coming up down the road.

First, we’ve had a successful beta period where we received great feedback and suggestions from our beta publishers. Many of them have achieved great success, and we’re happy to see that.

Our first major goal was to serve 1 billion impressions for the month of September, and we look on pace to surpass that goal, as we’re currently doing over 65 million impressions per day!

We’ve learned even more about what publishers want, but we’re happy to know we had the right idea and we’re on the right track.

As we look toward the future, I can release the following tidbits of information:

1. We’re set to launch to the public in mid-October. At that point any publisher who meets our content requirements can sign up and use the product.

2. RMX Direct will be getting a pretty new face that fits in better with the visual design of RightMedia.com. Click the following image for a full sample.

3. We’ve got a major new feature on the way code named “Passback” that will help any publisher using daisy chains to make more money. It also simplifies the hassle of managing a chain.

4. There are other new features coming such as a new simpler and more compatible tag type, the ability to link with any RMX network, and more community features.

The next couple of months should be very exciting for RMX Direct, we’ll obviously continue to keep you updated.

As we continually strive to enhance the platform that powers the Right Media Exchange, we will be introducing support for ACH payments between partners later this year.

What is ACH, you ask? It basically translates to direct deposit from one entity to another. While we at Right Media will not be handling any money, we are working with a 3rd party vendor of financial products to build a secure payments portal for you.

Using it should be straightforward — all you will need to do is follow these basic steps:

1. Create a profile within the payments portal and provide some banking details. This is very similar to what many of you do when you sign up for direct deposit of your paychecks.
2. Flag which entities you have agreed to pay via direct deposit (we will be releasing support for this soon).
3. Download a payables report (which we will also be releasing soon).
4. Upload the report into the payments portal, and then hit the Pay button for your invoices — simple as that.

Initially, we will be piloting this product as a way for RMX Direct networks to pay our RMX Direct publishers. Once we are satisfied, we will open it up to the rest of our exchange participants.

If you have any thoughts on this new feature, we’d love to hear them!

As Community Education Manager for Direct Media Exchange, I am always honored to show off some of the great people who make up our community: we do this by selecting a monthly ‘’Featured Publisher’’ from our Direct Media Exchange membership, then share their story with you. For the month of October, we’ve selected publisher Steve Jenkins (Cheatcodes.com).

Steve Jenkins is the President of Cheatcodes.com, a website whose niche has focused on video-game enthusiasts and programmers alike, providing them with resources to help facilitate a better understanding of the actual play and the technical underpinnings of all genres of video games. Steve was one of the first publishers to join DMX as a beta user.

Vince Panero (VP): How did you get interested in web publishing? What were those early days like for you? (more…)